Is there such a thing as math folk? I enjoy the complexity of math rock and, as someone who prefers folk music to rock, I'd love to hear how it would sound on traditional instruments. Bulgarian folk music frequently uses asymmetric meters, so I think it could work well.

>>54742306Nowadays it's such a broad term, but I'd say music which has technically complex melodies, time signature changes or just odd time signatures, rhytmically complex etcI feel like there are few straight up math rock bands and I barely know what that would sound like, most bands I can think of are either also heavily influenced by hardcore, indie rock or emo or something

>>54742306Rock that uses irregular time signatures, metric modulation, rapid changes in time signatures or timbre in general. Don Caballero is probably the best example.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26VOfPwgM_w

>>54742465I guess so, but I wasn't referring to strict folk music. More something that takes influence from folk music but uses the compositional characteristics of art music. Sort of like what math rock does with pop music.

I have yet to hear math rock that's actually complex. It's all just basic as fuck chords over slightly unusual time signatures, repeated ad infinitum. By this lame standard Jocko Homo is "math rock" because 7 is such a weird number, maaaaaan. There's no artistry or sophistication at all to this garbage, these retards would wet their skinny jeans if they saw an Elliot Carter score. Even the most basic jazz musicians have a deeper understanding of rhythm.

>>54743218The dude that is Invalids used to do folk music, it's not very math rock though, he throws in the occasional shortened bar but that's about it. There's accordion though.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgvbNeHGOpgI wish I had something better, I think this is the closest I can come up with.

>>54743488It doesn't need to be a competition but for a genre called "math rock" I at least expected SOME musical innovation and not the same straight-ahead punk bullshit in a sparkling new time signature>>54743531man then I just don't get you. Don't think I haven't tried listening to Don Cab, it bores me

>>54744942well most of the old-time stuff was released as singles so for that you gotta look into comps. I'm not super familiar with the genre so I can't give you like hot insider tips but for banjo stuff a big innovator was Earl Scruggs, he played with guitarist Lester Flatt as Flatt & Scruggs and you can find a bunch of their stuff on youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNuqKB6H3Iwanother good fingerpicker is Doc Watson, known for playing fiddle tunes on guitarhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUQmNGLvL3U&list=PL48446023595864E7bill monroe (the mandolin) is the father of bluegrasshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYTvj9Z_rlothis isn't very "complicated" but he's an old greathttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojFVnBOsRzUa couple more modern guys I know are Chris Thile and Mark O'Connor, they slant a little NPR/crossover thoughhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwbWgpbs8vQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ICDIb9b4Kw

bluegrass at its roots is appalachian music, hillbilly music, popularized. it's very intimately connected with country and they often overlap.

OP here. Why did this turn into a math rock hate thread? Are math rock and folk inherently at odds, prohibiting any fusion between the two? I'm sorry for not knowing about the intense rivalry. I'll avoid mentioning this in the future.

>>54746366I've listened to don cab, polvo, chavez, battles, shellac, lightning bolt, and a little hellashellac and lightning bolt don't have a fucking thing to do with "math rock" and are just the attempt of math rock fans to incorporate outside music and make their scene look like it sucks a little less. the rest is largely unimaginative and unmusical garbage. Repeating a slightly unconventional pattern for 10 bars at a time and improvising over it isn't "math".

>>54746320I've listened a bit and it seems like it's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.

>>54746575Any regions in particular? I've listened to Mande harp music and a bit of Kalahari stuff I think and none of it seemed particularly intriguing. I'd like to hear more some more rhythmic African stuff, so please link me if you can.

>>54746632>Repeating a slightly unconventional pattern for 10 bars at a time and improvising over it isn't "math".Try Lynx. Also, try getting over the name of the genre and just listen to the music without your ego getting in the way.

also i get a feeling that banjo is really underappreciated instrument in modern music (not talking about using it as a generic indie-folky-quirky way) but actualy using it in modern wayshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA8-lTxiA3A

>>54746703this is just middlebrow math-rock. pointless noodling bookends a completely conventional pop song. there's no unity or flow to this song, it's just lazy cut-and-paste. the first section sounds like a shitty Ruins song. it's also got the perennial problem of way too much drum fill: when are these guys going to figure out that it's much more effective to leave OUT some of the beats?

>>54746729the name of the genre made me expect more, but even ignoring that the music is terrible>>54747078additive rhythm isn't just about stapling different things together, it's about doing it in a way that works.

>>54746940I chose it because it was a bit more accessible, I understand that it is a bit poppy. But I don't think that's negative, and I think the choppy feel of it is on purpose m8.

It has some innovative use of guitar pedals, and they are incredibly tight and well rehearsed for playing something that changes that much. They also maintain a level spontaneity as well, which makes it more interesting (at least to me). Just all round great band, and performance, in my opinion.

>>54747276they are tight and rehearsed>How does it not work?the different parts of the piece don't relate to each other. they don't revisit themes very intelligently, so the music lacks structure. for comparison, I think this has very convincing transitionshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i_JzuYOPwIwhat you'll notice if you pay attention to this music is sections are usually just repeating riffs. they're not repeated to change accents or anything, they're just repeated to fill time. examine the white guitar's part at 1:23 to 1:53. there's very little melodic direction to this, it's a two bar 4/4 melody repeated ad nauseum, with some ornamentation added. this is what I consider "noodling".

>>54747672yeah that is noodling, but there are limitations of what you can do with one guitar playing live. On the track there's a bit more going on. Plus, whether it's noodling or not, it's effective and sounds cool.

You say you listened to Don Cab; when they repeat stuff, they build on it and have multiple riffs going over the top of each other. Which is common in Math Rock. I don't think I've heard many songs where a riff was repeated for an extended period of time without anything happening or changing like you claim.

>>54747954>there are limitations of what you can do with one guitar playing livea good jazz player would make a melody that bridged the two sections. the problem isn't that there's not enough going on, the problem is that the basic musical content is very bland and the musicians fill it out with pointless bullshit. it's like speed metal or something. mind you virtuosity can be a great and effective thing, but you have to know first and foremost where it is you're going.>multiple riffs going over the top of each otheryeah but the music overall lacks direction, ultimately it's just a few bars looped on repeat.

>>54748173I think your problem is you don't like the style of music. That's cool. As a guitarist, I know when it's appropriate to play certain things. If I was playing a jazz song, I may have sections flow into eachother better and smoother, if I was playing a math rock song I wouldn't.

If you don't like the sound, that's cool: however, you need to recognise that there are people who enjoy the broken, chopped together sound of teras melos far more than an artist that has nice smooth transitions.

I don't think the content is bland with most math rock and have often been taken aback while listening to it at odd note choices, and strange scales being used.

But whatever, there's no point arguing about a genre which is pretty loosely defined as it is.I don't agree with what you say, and I prefer the sound of "math rock" to a lot of other genres, although it isn't my favourite. I think it has merit, and you are being unfair with your criticism.

>>54749078structural breaks have a role to play, that's a fair point to make. however I don't think any of this music uses them intelligently to generate tension etc. the very fact that you characterize the music as a "sound" illustrates my point: this music doesn't take you anywhere. they don't use these elements to build interesting large structures and create narratives. sometimes they use somewhat unusual melodies, but it's not the norm, and quite often the songs have extremely conventional pop melodies, as in the tera melos example, to balance any of that out.

>>54743253not so sure man, math rock is hard as fuck to write. yea, there are bands that just jam to odd time signatures, but actually writing it is tough as fuck. I'm a jazz performance major, for guitar, and I wont disagree the rhythms can be caught and jammed to, but even us in the jazz dept. go watch the prog-rock ensembles to watch their playing.

>>54749238"hard to compose" doesn't mean it's any good, as a musician you should realize that>>54749476well I haven't heard that one, so I guess I'll check it out. by large structures I don't mean like album-length though, I mean even over the course of a single song. Listen to the first minute or so of this.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlLih9wyORYYou see how it tells a story? How it builds musical sentences out of basic elements, and builds towards an end?

>>54750089well to be very basic about it it's built on call and response. 0:03 the 7 note theme (which is itself a 4/3 call and response) gets a response from 0:03 to 0:08, it's elaborated with those slurred notes. then it gets progressively elaborated. each phrase is a response to the last phrase. 0-8s, 8s-13s, 13s-17s,17s-23s, 23s-31s, 31s-42s. the phrases and they climax naturally towards the cadence at 0:42, there's more ornamentation and fuller harmony as you approach that point and the the motives within the phrases get shorter and more distinct which gives a sense of cut time/acceleration.just to be clear it doesn't finish over the course of that minute because that's not the end of the song>>54750540then say that to begin with.

>>54749640some of it has interesting elements but it's all got a lot of that repeated-phrase problem that I mentioned. It bores me that all they can think to do with a section is repeat it, it's also fatiguing because it cheats cadential motion

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